It ain’t over ‘till it’s over. But it’s mostly over in San Diego. Most of the ballots for the June 2016 primary election have been tallied. The remaining 285,000 ballots uncounted as of Wednesday morning are provisional and late arriving mail-in ballots. A few close races may change, but if history is any guide, what you see in the way of results the day after the election is what you get.

A multi-year campaign for an increase in the local minimum wage came to a close as voters overwhelmingly approved City Proposition I. For me personally, and for tens of thousands of San Diego workers, the last item on the ballot was the most important one.

Kevin Faulconer will be San Diego’s Mayor for the next four years, Barbara Bry did well in City Council District One, Mara Elliot defied conventional wisdom by clinching a runoff spot in the race for City Attorney, and Democrats gave Hillary Clinton a strong show of support, locally and statewide.

Note: I’ll update this analysis as more data becomes available.

National Contests

Donald Trump won statewide in California, with 75.3% of the Republican vote. In San Diego, he won with 78.44%. He handily won primaries in Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. (North Dakota isn’t holding a GOP primary in 2016)

Photo by Barbara Zaragoza

Massive rallies and a social media blitzkrieg didn’t translate into a Golden State victory for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

With 99.7% of precincts reporting statewide:

Hillary Clinton 55.8%Bernie Sanders 43.2%

Locally:

Hillary Clinton 55.1%Bernie Sanders 44.1%

Bernie Sanders won primaries in Montana and North Dakota. Hillary Clinton won in New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota.

Clinton took the stage in Brooklyn to an explosion of cheers from her crowd, in the kind of eruption of enthusiasm that has been fleeting during much of her campaign. Clearly delighted, she stood with her arms outstretched on stage, savoring the adulation.

Reaching out to Sanders supporters, Clinton praised the Vermont senator for his long public service and mirrored some of his progressive economic rhetoric. She played down any notion of divisions and said their vigorous primary campaign was “very good for the Democratic Party and for America.”

But in a sign of the task she faces in uniting the party, Sanders supporters loudly booed her name when he said he had received a “gracious” call from his rival and said he had congratulated her on her victories on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Politico is out with a story about chaos in the Sanders campaign. A large number of staffers will be laid off this week and former staffers have started saying not-very-flattering things to the press:

Top Sanders aides admit that it’s been weeks, if not months, since they themselves realized he wasn’t going to win, and they’ve been operating with a Trump’s-got-no-real-shot safety net. They debate whether Sanders’ role in the fall should be a full vote-for-Clinton campaign, or whether he should just campaign hard against Trump without signing up to do much for her directly.

They haven’t been able to get Sanders focused on any of that, or on the real questions about what kind of long term organization to build out of his email list. They know they’ll have their own rally in Philadelphia – outside the convention hall—but that’s about as far as they’ve gotten.

“He wants to be in the race until the end, until the roll call vote,” Weaver said.

In third-party races, Alan Spears won the nod from the American Independent Party, Jill Stein won the Green Party primary, Gary Johnson won with Libertarians, and Gloria Estela La Riva will be the nominee for the Peace and Freedom Party.

House of Representatives

Democrat Scott Peters (58.6%) will face Republican Denise Gitsham (16.1%) in November in the 52nd congressional district. The only other contest that wasn’t lopsided in favor of the incumbent was District 49, where challenger Doug Applegate (45.4%) came within six points of beating Darrel Issa (51.1%). The San Diego portion of the district gave Issa a one-point victory.

San Diego Community College Board

San Diego Unified School Board

District EChallenger Collins beat out appointed trustee Whitehurst-Payne

LaShea Collins – 58.95%Sharon Whitehurst-Payne – 41.05%

Judicial Races

The incumbent judges won, facing more than the usual token opposition

Office 25James Mangione – 62.21%Paul Ware – 37.97%

Office 38Keri Katz 64.79%Carla Keehn 35.21%

Carl DeMaio manning the peanut gallery. Photo by Barbara Zaragoza

On This Day: 1852 – The earliest recorded strike by Chinese immigrants to the U.S. occurred when stonemasons, who were brought to San Francisco to build the three-story Parrott granite building—made from Chinese prefabricated blocks—struck for higher pay. 1953 – The Supreme Court outlawed segregated restaurants in Washington, DC. 1978 – A jury in Clark County, Nevada, ruled that the “Mormon will,” was a forgery. The work was supposedly written by Howard Hughes.

I read the Daily Fishwrap(s) so you don’t have to… Catch “the Starting Line” Monday thru Friday right here at San Diego Free Press (dot) org. Send your hate mail and ideas to DougPorter@SanDiegoFreePress.Org Check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

Doug Porter

Doug Porter was active in the early days of the alternative press in San Diego, contributing to the OB Liberator, the print version of the OB Rag, the San Diego Door, and the San Diego Street Journal. He went on to have a 35-year career in the Hospitality business and decided to go back into raising hell when he retired. He won numerous awards for his columns from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Doug is a cancer survivor (sans vocal chords) and lives in North Park.

Comments

Hoo Hoo, we’re going to put Democrat Mara Elliot into the City Attorney’s office, and the Bernal Bros (from Downtown Inc) failed to purchase the Dist. 5 seat. Actually this was a good down-ballot showing for progressives. We can hope Weber, Gonzalez and Atkins can educate Todd Gloria in the Assembly now that he’s somewhat less under the thumbs of Mayor Sanders/Faulconer (feel the Earth shake, Todd, and which way the Wind is blowing and where the Fire is). Lori Saldana and Ed Harris kept Faulconer from breaaking through to 60% but let’s face it, his teeth are bulletproof. There’s something wrong when the Demos, with a 78,000 registration edge over Republicans can’t gain on the GOP’s control of the Mayor’s Office. The County Central Committee better start listening to Earth Wind and Fire.

Despite being outspent 40:1 by a corporate-backed incumbent, using only 1 paid staff person, my Independent campaign received 22% of the vote from almost 42,000 voters. On the day I announced my campaign, I asked Faulconer to pledge he would not run for Governor, and focus on the needs of San Diego.

Four months later- he did exactly that.

As for my 42,000 votes: Only a handful of candidates in the county received more votes than this- and were either incumbents and/or spent considerably more money.

We ran a grassroots, clean money campaign with personal contributions only- no PAC money or support from corporations, political parties or labor unions. Not sure of the final report, but our 400 or so supporters contributed an average of $120 a person.

Many thanks to those who contributed to help us achieve this No Party Preference, clean money, volunteer-driven success.

Faulconer raised $1.4 million for himself, yet could only find $625,000 to support more 9-1-1 dispatchers in his May revise. I raised about $50K in a few months with no paid fundraising staff- just volunteers and my personal time calling supporters.

So let’s put it this way: How many San Diegans have been put in harms way, with delayed or no emergency response, due to this skewed sense of priorities since Faulconer and his staff apparently spent more time raising money for his re-election than finding funds for 9-1-1 improvements?

Only a weak incumbent needs that kind of war-chest to defend against an Independent running a clean money campaign without PAC, Party or Labor support. As I stated in the final debate: he was a weak candidate, with a big funding smokescreen. It’s a shame no one took him on earlier.

That fundraising discrepancy between campaign & 9-1-1 services tells San Diegans who and what he considers important, and takes more of his time and attention: not protecting lives in San Diego, but raising money to fund his re-election and, until the day of our May 24 debate, considering a run for Governor.

In my announcement I made it clear: I ran because I wanted Faulconer to focus on this job, not run for another. I pledged I would serve 4 years if elected, and challenged him to to the same. Happy that he paid attention and ultimately announced he will keep his eyes on San Diego for 4 years.

And if he changes his mind: I will be there, reminding him that 45K (so far) voters marked ballots for me, and I will remind him of what really matters to residents of this city: their lives and safety, not his campaign financing.

The campaign is over Ms. Saldaña. You don’t have to avoid the question and pivot to your talking points. I asked you:

“You cited contributions per vote. Do you have information on expenditures per vote? The former shows strength of support while the latter shows efficiency”

I still suspect this will favor the strength of your campaign but I am curious about the cost/vote rather than the revenues/vote. Certainly, you can provide me your cost/vote (If you spent the whole $50K, it still cost you $1.19/vote)

The short answer is that the County Board covers all the 40+ school districts in San Diego County. (Annual report) San Diego Unified covers mostly schools in the City of San Diego and is required to submit budgets, etc for approval to the county. For more on County Boards and what they do in California, go here.

Thank you for helping to shed light on the politics of how “elected” judges are really “appointed” judges; and what they will do to circle the wagons to assure that their short-term appointments become life-time jobs.

It’s a problem that plagues the entire state. It’s aided to continue by the Commission on Judicial Performance’s (CJP) refusal to admonish for unethical judicial conduct.

It was nice to see the left (You), the right (Carl DeMaio), and all forms of media in between (KPBS, Gene Cubbison, Daily Journal, etc), help to raise flags over this matter — which adversely impacts autonomy, transparency and impartiality in the courts.